I'm a Proud Aunt

On Thursday, April 8, 2010 my newest niece, Charlotte Ruth Fowler, was born at 5:08 pm.  She weighed 8lbs and was 19.5 inches long.  She has the cutest chubby cheeks and a good head of hair for being a blonde.  Her hair is also pretty wavy, so I'm guessing it grows in curly.  My little sis, Hattie, was a trooper and was able to not have a C-section.  Since Charlotte waited until the very last minute to drop and be born, she has the most perfect round head.  I really appreciate everyone letting me be a baby hog since I had to leave the next day to get back to my own kiddos.  Mark, my brother-in-law, was the best protective daddy.  He stepped up and made sure she was completely taken care of.  I'm so excited to see the little angel I know Charlotte will grow up to be.

(P.S. A huge thanks to Briana, Alyssa, Poppy, Dawn, and Robin for handling my kids so I could be with my sister.)

Spring Break '10 - Part 3

Friday - Saturday: celebrated a belated St. Patrick's Day at Mamaw and Poppy's

Aaron's parents have started a tradition of having a St. Patrick's Day meal type of party for the last couple of years.  It's usually consisted of clover shaped fried Spam (and she usually has cut out letter shapes as well to represent our names), green mac-n-cheese and green beans.  One year we had green jello, but this year she made green cake for dessert.  It's fun and the kids find it very memorable.  This year we stayed for a sleepover in their new house. 

Spring Break '10 - Part 2

Wednesday - Inner Space Cavern with Mimi and Papaw (my parents)
Thursday - Star of Texas Fair and Rodeo grounds with Poppy

My scanner doesn't work for now, so the picture from Inner Space Cavern is to come.  But let me tell you that the kids are still talking about it.  Especially the bats.  :)

We invited Poppy (Aaron's dad) to go with us to the Fair, but he ended up surprising us by treating us the whole time.  Thanks Poppy.  The kids loved every single part.  Skylyn LOVES animals so she couldn't stop squealing during the petting zoo.  Aaris loved playing farmer.  Titus loved driving the tractor in the farm.  They also got to see a cow being milked and now all of the sudden Aaris really wants to drink 'white' milk.  She use to only drink chocolate milk.  They also got to ride the ponies.  But, the most memorable part was the Swine Races.  The crowd was divided up into sections to root for the individual piglets.  Then, the announcer picked one person from each of the sections to be a cheerleader.  If your section won and you were the cheerleader, you won a prize.  Well, during the second race Aaris got picked as the cheerleader for our section.  Our piglet won.  She got a pig key chain and some Oreos (that's what the piglets race to eat).  She shared with all of us...not that we hadn't eaten enough fairgrounds food.  :)

Spring Break '10 - Part 1

This year was Aaris's first official Spring Break.  We didn't have an option of going anywhere, especially with Aaron having been out of a job, so we just did little things each day to make it unique and fun. 

First Saturday - friend's (Hailey) birthday party at Capital Gymnastics and playing outside

First Sunday - Zilker Kite Fest

Monday - played at cool new park and had dinner with our great friends the Collins

Tuesday - swimming indoors at the YMCA

The Kite Fest was hard to get to and from, but the kids were so great through it all.  Aaron was gone all weekend on an already planned weekend with his brother, but the kids and I had fun.  We couldn't believe how many kites there were.  They were getting tangled up in the air because they were all so close together.  We just took the kids their little kites that didn't get very high that day.  They had to climb up on our stroller to get high enough for the wind to catch them.  Afterwords, on the way home we stopped for some ice-cream at DQ.

Then comes baby

My baby sister is going to have a baby!!!  I am so very, very excited for her and my brother-in-law!!!!  Hattie is going to be such an amazing mother.  She is due on Aaris's Holy Heart Anniversary, April 10.  She has had two fabulous baby showers that I was honored to attend.

In January my Mom and I hosted a baby shower for Hattie at my parents house.  A lot of high school friends showed up along with wonderful women from my parents church.  Aaris and Skylyn also attended.  Aaris loved being Hattie's little helper with bringing her the gifts to open.  I made her a door knocking sign for this shower.   

The first weekend in March Hattie's friends from her church in Dallas, Preston Crest, threw her another fantastic shower.  So many were able to attend, including many relatives.  I've never seen so many amazing gifts.  Hattie just beamed with joy, excitement and thankfulness threw them all.  They are naming my new niece Charolette Ruth.  Charlotte is going to one very stylish little beauty!  I made Charolette a littel tutu that matches ones that Aaris and Skylyn also have.  Can't wait to see them grow up together.

FLIP FLOPPED

When I was pregnant with Aaris, Hattie helped host a baby shower for me at my mom's house (6 years ago!).  Well, now with my sister's first baby I too got to help host a shower for her at my mom's house.  Here are the pictures of the roles now reversed:

GOOOOOOOOAAALL!

Both Aaris and Titus played in the Winter Season of Indoor Soccer at our local YMCA from January until the first week of March.  It proved to be a great year of growth and learning for both kids.  Aaris went from, as she put it in her own words, "running just to hear the sound of my feet", to actually hustling and being aggressive.  Titus went from crying so much that sometimes he wouldn't even step onto the court the whole game, to being excited to go in and play.  It was funny because the thing he came off the court yelling with excitement by the end of the season was "Mommy - I didn't cry!!!"  The coolest thing is that both kids scored goals during the season.  Aaris scored 3 goals.  I actually got to attend the game when she scored two and it was indescribable to watch her accomplish something like that.  Can you tell that this was my first experience of being a sports mom.  :)  Titus, in a round about sort of way, also scored 3 goals.  All in one game: 1 for the other team, 1 that got kicked back out as soon as it went it, so the ref. didn't call it properly, and 1 truly legit and very great goal!  Titus was the youngest and smallest by far player on his team (and maybe the league), so it was a huge triumph for him to not give up and try so hard!  I am so blessed to have these kids.  It's such a blessing to experience their lives with them. 

(We primarily always shot video of the kids, so pictures were hard to come by.  Thank goodness for the grandparents contributing their snapshots...and time at the games.)

Rodeo Day

The Kindergartners had rodeo day at Aaris's school at the beginning of the month.  Aaris had a great time and was really excited to dress up. (I remember this day because it's the day Aaron came home early because he had been laid off from work.)